


For You See My Rommate Is...

by anna_thema



Category: Wicked - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, F/F, Roommates, Trans Character, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:54:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22244425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anna_thema/pseuds/anna_thema
Summary: Lately she had noticed some additional attraction between them, a message hidden in hugs that lingered a bit longer than usual, and the way that her hand sometimes found Glinda’s when they were together. It was unusual, though not unpleasant, and Elphaba often wished to explore it further, though she flatly refused to entertain a crush.***Glinda and Elphaba move in together after Shiz. A nice fluffy romance involving stargazing, cuddling, and a hint of magic.
Relationships: Elphaba Thropp/Galinda Upland
Kudos: 81





	For You See My Rommate Is...

It was raining again. 

Of course it would be raining today, moving day, of all days. Elphaba’s thoughts ran sour as she wove in and out of traffic before crossing the street to catch her bus. She still was very dubious about the whole endeavor, but with her old landlady Mrs. Morrible raising rent and Glinda finally getting sick of her parents’ place, they were both looking for a new place to live. It was only natural (or so she was assured) that they find a place together.

“After all Elphie,” Glinda had said, “now that we’re friends, I’ve decided to make a project out of you. I’m going to teach you all about getting the most out of life, and people, so that you can really live up to the potential that nobody else seems to see in you!”

“And you can’t afford rent on your own.”

“...And I can’t afford rent on my own.”

Glinda could be a handful sometimes, and more than a little over the top, but the truth was, Elphaba was really glad that they were getting along better. When they’d been introduced to each other, you couldn’t have found two more at odds people, but they’d both really opened to each other recently, and Elphaba found she actually enjoyed spending time with Glinda. Lately she had noticed some additional attraction between them, a message hidden in hugs that lingered a bit longer than usual, and the way that her hand sometimes found Glinda’s when they were together. It was unusual, though not unpleasant, and Elphaba often wished to explore it further, though she flatly refused to entertain a crush. Romance was for peasants.

Several people did double takes at her as she got onto the bus, their furtive glances and sidelong glares telling Elphaba exactly what they thought of her.

“What?” she grumbled back, barely audible. “You never seen a woman before?”

In truth the staring wasn’t what bothered Elphaba most about being trans. It was almost nice to be recognized. At least then people didn’t ignore who she was just because of her voice or her face or whatever. But honestly, the looks she got sometimes, it was like she’d been born with green skin.

The bus pulled in at her stop, depositing Elphaba once again into the downpour. She hurried along the street to their new apartment. She was desperate to get out of the rain already soaking through her clothes. Elphaba had never been able to stand the feeling of water on her skin, there was just a wrongness to it. Even showers and baths were torment, and she sometimes used oils and dry soaps as a substitute. In middle school her classmates had taken to waiting by the water fountain and squirting her when she walked by. It got old real fast. 

Well before Elphaba reached the address Glinda had given her, she saw a neon pink umbrella, sheltering a figure in a coral rain jacket and yellow boots. That could only be one person. Elphaba picked up her pace, a little grin working its way across her face.

“Elphie!” Glinda’s pet name for her rang out, doing its darndest to dispel the gloom of the day. “You made it!”

“Why, fancy meeting you here,” Elphaba replied. “Out enjoying the weather?”

“Goodness, you’re getting soaked, here.” Glinda held out the umbrella for her friend to hide under. “Don’t you ever wear a raincoat?”

“What can I say, I’m a sucker for pain, and besides if I get sick and die at least I won’t have to put up with you calling me Elphie.” Elphaba’s smile was teasing.

“I’m gonna write that on your tombstone, just you watch.”

Elphaba gave Glinda a light punch on the arm, then turned her attention to the house in question. It belonged to a neighborhood largely occupied by Greek life and senior housing from Shiz University, two miles to the East, but it seemed to command its own presence, entirely separate. Though it was only one story, it seemed to loom over its neighbors, like a very small haunted house. It had a tiny porch and an incongruous two story tower in one corner that looked as though the chimney had one day gotten ideas of becoming a room itself.

“Geeze Glinda, where’d you find this place?”

“You remember Fiyero? His family used to use this house as a second home of sorts, but they never use it now, so he was able to get me a good deal on renting it out.”

“Okay….” Elphaba was still dubious, the thing looked both imposing and pathetic at the same time, and the wild beehive in the tree out front didn’t help much.

“C’mon Elphie!” Glinda grabbed Elphaba’s hand, and the touch sent shivers through her that she found hard to contain. “Let’s at least see what it’s like inside.”

As they walked up the steps to the front door, Elphaba was aware of a warm glow spreading through her body and dispelling the cold, emanating from the spot where Glinda’s hand met hers.

What it was like inside was, in a word, confusing. While certainly livable, it was clear that nothing other than basic maintenance had been done in a while. Cobwebs hung in the windows, and a battered old broom rested in one corner, along with a rusted out bucket. Elphaba and Glinda were escorted from room to room by a small, excitable caretaker who introduced himself only as Chistery. Truth be told he did little more than unlock the door for them and point out where the kitchen and bathrooms were, all the while bouncing up and down like he was about to take off.

“It really is a charming place, Miss Glinda and, er,  _ Miss  _ Elphaba” (here Elphaba cringed a bit, Glinda squeezed her hand reassuringly). “I keep it in good shape as best I can while my employers get settled in their other house. It used to be part of the university, see, but it got sold off some time ago. Perhaps you know of the university?”

Elphaba and Glinda shared a smile. Did they ever know about the university. Both of them had gone to Shiz, and for the first two or so years had hated each other’s guts. It had been a wild time in both their lives, and the University still held an aura of myth and mystery, like a fairy kingdom that you could only half grasp with your logical mind. Elphaba’s little sister, Nessarose, was still a junior there.

“I see that you ladies do, perhaps I could show you to the bedroom now? I think you will find it very agreeable.”

Glinda gave an excited squeak and ran off, following Chistery, leaving Elphaba standing alone in the front room. Something had caught her eye. On the right side of the room, a door stood ajar, revealing a glimpse of a spiral staircase reaching upward. Elphaba started towards it. Pulling the door open further (it screeched), she peered upward into the gloom. Little light penetrated the windows up above; the storm was still raging. Step by step, she ascended the staircase. As she did, she felt a growing sense of something wondrous, as though she were stepping through to a different world. Dust filtered down, collecting on her dress and in her hair. She fought the urge to sneeze, it seemed sacreligious somehow.

At the top of the stairs, Elphaba gasped. She was standing in a round room, a tower at the top of the house enclosed from the elements. Wide windows faced the cardinal directions, and there were more in the roof, providing a view of the grey clouds, spattered with raindrops. The room was unfurnished, but Elphaba could feel it waiting somehow, as though it were ready to receive future occupants. She felt charged through with excitement and at the same time totally at peace.

Taking in her surroundings, she realized that the room was not entirely bare. A broom stood in one corner that only distantly remembered sweeping dust, and in the center of the floor rested a plain leather book. Crossing the room cautiously, Elphaba bent down to examine it. It was simple and unadorned, bound in something that was almost leather. It had no title, but the same sense of familiarity surrounded it, as if she had seen it before years ago, as a child. She was just reaching out to touch it, perhaps even daring to open it, when she was distracted by footsteps thundering up the staircase. 

“There you are Elphie!” came Glinda’s singsong voice, and Elphaba felt a fluttering in her heart at the sound of the nickname. “Chistery’s gone, he left for work at the University. But what do you think? I mean I know it’s not exactly palatial and it’s quite dusty and there’s only one be-”

“Doesn’t matter,” Elphaba interrupted, and turning, grinned at her friend with a joy that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt. “I love it.”

***

They moved in that very week. 

As Elphaba hauled her last box of stuff up the steps (one of three, she didn’t need much), she smiled to herself. Ever since they’d agreed to take the space, she’d felt such a sense of joy. It was sunny today, and earlier that day she and Glinda had lain out on the grass in a nearby park, beneath the shade of a tree. At some point Glinda’s hand had found hers, and their fingers had entwined together, her friend’s smaller hand nestled in Elphaba’s larger one. A perfect moment that had come and gone, leaving everything better on the other side.

Elphaba claimed the upstairs room as her own. It connected with her in a way she couldn’t explain, to Glinda or even to herself. The book that she’d found was most intriguing, and she often found herself distracted from her unpacking and poring through its pages, although for the most part it was written in a language she didn’t recognize, and those parts she could read were nonsense to her. As she stacked the last of her books on the shelf and placed the mysterious book on top of the bookcase, she heard the stairs creak behind her. Looking up, she noticed Glinda standing at the top of the stairs, wearing a somewhat sheepish expression.

“Hey.”

“Ever notice how your stuff weighs about twice as much as it normally does only when you’re moving?”

“Well, yeah, I guess I got lucky, Boq offered to help me move my stuff.”

The name was familiar from somewhere. “He that kid that always followed you around at school?”

“That’s the one.” Glinda rolled her eyes. “A bit of a nerd, but then again, so are you.”

Elphaba gave her a playful shove. “And proud of it.”

They’d only been roommates for about twelve hours, but already things felt easy. One thing that Elphaba appreciated was how Glinda never made a fuss about her being trans. She didn’t ignore it like some people, but it never got in the way or awkward, and never kept her from treating her like another woman. Glinda reached up to brush a stray bit of dust out of her roommate’s hair, her touch lingering just a second longer than was necessary. They locked eyes. Glinda looked away first. 

Glancing upward in an attempt to avoid any more awkward eye contact, Glinda gasped in amazement. “Look at the stars Elphi--Elphaba! And that moon!”

The taller girl looked up as well. Night had fully fallen, and the view through the skylight window was indeed amazing. Elphaba had positioned her bed to be as close to under it as possible. She now gestured toward the bed.

“If you want to lie back and look, feel free.”

Glinda availed herself of the offer immediately, lying back and gazing up at the night sky. Elphaba looked at her contemplatively. Seen from this angle and in this light, Glinda seemed to pass just slant of normal. She appeared as one of those sleeping princesses in stories and plays and the like, waiting for her lover’s kiss…

Elphaba shook herself, surprised and a little bit alarmed to have let her mind wander so far. She sat down gently on the other side of the bed, and felt Glinda stiffen at the motion.

“Mind if I join you,” she asked, tentatively, “I mean, to look at the stars?”

_ You didn’t need to clarify that _ , she berated herself _ , I mean what else could you have meant _ . Still, Glinda gave her a faint smile. 

“Sure, I’ll make some room, it’s your bed after all.”

She skooched over, leaving ample room for Elphaba to fold her wiry frame into the bed. Elphaba kept her arms folded across her chest, and looked up at the night sky.

“See anything you recognize?”

“Well…” Glinda bit her lip. “Not really, just the moon, and the Big Dipper. How about you?”

“Mostly just the moon,” Elphaba conceded. “Although I think I can see the Pleiades.”

She pointed and Glinda followed her finger in a line. They were pretty faint, especially with the moon out and the skyglow from the city, but there was a faintly glimmering cluster of stars.

“I like them, they seem to have such a delicate beauty to them.”

Next to her, Glinda was silent. They lay like that for a while. Occasionally one or the other would point out a constellation that they thought they recognized. Eventually, Glinda yawned. “I’m afraid I should be getting off to bed, such as it is, it’s the only thing in my room that I’ve managed to fully unpack.”

Elphaba, who had been dozing of herself, nodded. “Me too, but we should do this again sometime.” 

Glinda smiled “I’d like that I think. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

***

It became a habit, a nightly ritual of theirs. Glinda would come up to her room as the sun set, and they would lie side by side, looking up at the constellations. Elphaba could name any of the constellations and give their mythology, all of Glinda’s were made up. And so they taught each other about Orion, and the Pleiades, and the great cheese wedge, and the Rocking Giraffe. They lay just far enough apart to not crowd each other, but on the occasions when their arms or hands brushed against each other, Elphaba could feel it like water scalding her skin, and the stars seemed to shine a bit brighter. Glinda never stayed though, and Elphaba often would find herself starting to doze off, only to jerk awake and find the bed cold and her housemate gone. The feeling of disappointment she felt at this was unwelcome, though not unexpected. The word ‘Crush’ had begun to worm itself into Elphaba’s mind, though she refused to entertain it. 

Elphaba made a study of the book she’d found in the attic room. It was written in a language she couldn’t understand, but the illustrations were highly suggestive of biological and chemical processes. When she tried sounding out some of the words, she felt the same sort of calling, for that was the only way to describe it, that she’d felt when she first entered the room. Try as she might though, the words never seemed to come out right, and she inevitably gave up. The broom that had accompanied the book lay forgotten in a corner, though occasionally she would halfheartedly try to sweep up with it. Between that and her job (trail manager at a local state park) she hadn’t had much time to consider this budding whatever it was with her housemate.

***

It was a Dark and Stormy Night. Elphaba loved storms. Though she hated getting wet, she loved the way the rain sounded on her roof. It never failed to put her in a relaxed mood. Besides, thunderstorms carried such a power with them that, no matter how much people tried to distance themselves from nature, never could ignore. 

On this particular Dark and Stormy Night however, the power had gone out. Elphaba had been reading, trying to put together a sign for the park about the dangers of littering (ie. Incurring the wrath of a certain disgruntled employee who was tired of picking up your crap), when the lamp sputtered and died. A few seconds later, she heard the music that was playing slowly die out as her record player spun down. 

“Dammit,” Elphaba muttered, and put down her book. She got up and lit a candle. Its flickering amber light was enough to see and probably read by, but she’d had enough of work for the night. She took the candle and began to go through the motions of getting ready for bed. A bit early, but hey, falling asleep to rain was nice, so long as you weren’t getting wet.

She had put on her nightgown and was turning to her bed when she heard a creak on the stairs. She turned to find Glinda standing on the top step. Elphaba flushed as she wondered exactly how long Glinda had been watching her. Then she noticed how nervous her roommate looked. Her sharp inhale and shaky exhale. Thunder cracked outside, and Glinda jumped like she’d taken flight. 

“Hey.” The words were more like a murmur.

“Hey.” She didn’t know what else to say. There was another flash of lightning and Glinda flinched, and it dawned on her,  _ she was frightened of the storm. _

“Are you--“ But what precisely her roommate was or wasn’t was lost when the sky lit up, followed by the loudest crash of thunder, directly over them it seemed. Glinda started backward, and this time she failed to regain her balance. She teetered, poised to fall backwards down the stairs, and as Elphaba watched the event unfold in slow motion something charged took over her. Without thinking, she darted forward and caught the shorter woman by the hand, wrapping the other around her waist to arrest her fall.

For what seemed like a full minute, they stood there. Thunder rumbled, more distantly now, but Glinda didn’t so much as tremble. Green eyes stared into blue, and the distance between them grew shorter and shorter.

“Are you ok?” The words were barely above a whisper, and Elphaba was suddenly acutely aware of Glinda’s heavy breathing, the rise and fall of her breasts, and the smell of her lip gloss. She pulled her to her feet, but they did not let go of each other.

“Yeah,” Glinda replied breathlessly, not taking her eyes off of her roommate, with the distance between them still painfully close, or was it too far away? “Thanks, I-I guess I was scared, I wanted to…be up here, with you.” This last was barely audible.

“Well, here I am,” and suddenly they were centimeters apart. And Elphaba swallowed. “Can I--“

“Yes.” And finally their lips met.

The kiss was magic, there was no other word. Elphaba felt as though she’d caught fire as her lips found Glinda’s, and she was aware of every cell in her body tingling. She deepened the kiss as her lips parted, drinking in Glinda’s scent, taste, touch. She felt her insides, and then her whole body, melt, as though she were a snow sculpture someone had poured warm water on. When they finally broke apart, she found it difficult to stand, both were breathing heavily. 

“Okay, so, yep.”

Glinda looked up sheepishly.

“So, that happened, huh?”

“Sure did.”

There was another awkward silence, rain still thrashed at the windows, though the storm sounded still more distant. Eventually Elphaba broke the silence.

“You know, you’re welcome to hang out here for a bit, if that helps. We could, I dunno, look at the stars, or something.” It was a transparent excuse, and they both knew it, the sky was boiling with clouds. She tried again. 

“I mean, if you want to hang out til the power comes on you can, and we can pretend like, like whatever that was, never happened.”

“I don’t,” Glinda sputtered out, and Elphaba felt a heavy weight drop in her stomach, as if she’d been flying and suddenly been pulled down to earth. 

“Oh, ok, sure, well, I’m gonna go check the breakers, see if that’s the only problem.” 

Elphaba suddenly needed to be anywhere but there. Maybe somewhere in that old tome (currently serving as a bookend for her record collection) she could find a formula for memory loss and forget this ever happened. If she could make sense of the damned thing. She made to turn and run down the stairs, but was arrested by a hand grabbing hers. 

“No I mean--“ And Glinda looked almost as distraught as she did, “I meant, I want to stay, but I don’t want to pretend like that never happened. I want to, well I don’t know what, but I know that I wouldn’t mind, well, more of that.”

She smiled, nervously, and Elphaba thought she had never truly appreciated how lovely a smile it was.

“That could be arranged.”

They spent the rest of the night side by side in the bed, counting the receding thunderclaps, Glinda sheltering herself in the taller woman’s arms. Later, when the sky cleared and the stars came out, they gazed up and counted the Pleiades, making up their own constellation. And in the morning, when Elphaba woke up, she found Glinda nestled under the covers beside her.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I wanted to include a hint of something magical in this story, something that could or could not be fantastical.


End file.
